Painting Challenge Submission #3 - Rebel Alliance Pathfinders

Rebel Pathfinders and a heavy support weapon for "Star Wars".

My third submission to AHPC XIII returns to the Star Wars setting, and picks things up right where I left off at AHPC XII. This is a group of Rebel Alliance troopers - most of them "pathfinders" intended to supplement the ranks of Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso's team that I painted last March. There is also one rebel trooper ready to employ a liberated Imperial heavy laser against its previous owners. All of these are independent 3D sculpts, printed in the unique and oddly large scale of the "Star Wars: Legion" game.

View showing the rear of the fatigues, and some of the kit you can put on their belts etc.

The "Legion" rules themselves are...not for me. I find them almost unplayably baroque, riven with mindless, card-driven complexity for no good reason and requiring a gaming table that fills rapidly with clouds of chit-style markers. 

But sometimes you need to separate the figures from the rules. "Legion" has bad rules IMO, but a lot of great figures which have been a lot of fun to paint. And there are a great variety of rules you can use out there, so I find I am more and more "stuck in" to collecting and painting figures for this setting. 

Painting Star Wars figures is also good for a sense of connection to my hobby roots. Since relocating to Ontario, I've no longer been able to take for granted that a "Star Wars" game could be whipped together at a moment's notice (one of the many things that is so great about the Winnipeg group on this blog). So in the past couple of years, I have started painting up/collecting my own "Star Wars" figures and models - when I see them, I think of my friends, and hey, they are also ready for a game at any time should folks end up visiting, right?

Selection of the Pathfinders - equipped with A-300 blasters in "long range" configuration.

So that brings us around to these specific figures - the "Pathfinders" are something of a separate, and perhaps more elite (ish?) class of Rebel Alliance infantry. I think of them more as "the troopers who fought at Scarif in 'Rogue One'" - and in this sense, they are different from "the troopers who fought at Echo Base" or "the commandos that fought on Endor" etc.
 

"Take cover!"

This distinction was not lost on Fantasy Flight Games, and they issued a "Rebel Pathfinders" box set. Those are nice figures, but the pack is quite specific, and you really cannot use the box to build up a more generic force of "Pathfinder" type troops the way you can with the more generic Rebel infantry in the starter box. I really like the look of the Rebels who fought on the the islands at the Imperial base on Scarif, and wished I could find more troopers with that look to add to my collection. 

Officer in the middle with a pistol - and the set also included a discarded Shore Trooper helmet, so I put that on the base to mark him out. The other two Pathfinders are carrying A-300 blasters in their short range, carbine-style configuration.

What to do? It was hardly a serious problem - I just had enter the vast, and incredibly talented world of 3D sculptors and printers dedicated to Star Wars! Dave V had some awesome suggestions for me, including the figures you see here. This "Modular Pathfinder Battalion" was a bit pricey, but fit the bill perfectly - the right mix of helmets, of fatigues and the different blasters used by the "Pathfinders", including the odd rifles and carbines that have what seem to be air-cooled barrels...that makes no sense, but why should it, right? I love it. 

Like so many good projects, these sat in the "pending pile" for months, and as AHPC XIII loomed, I thought it would be good to get them done! They are painted in colours to match the "Pathfinders" from the FFG box I painted last March.

A "liberated" E-web blaster - the sculptor did a great job on this 3D printed design - the Rebel trooper looks to be really enjoying using this weapon against the Empire!

When shopping online, it is very rare that I buy just ONE thing, so when I was purchasing these Pathfinders, I spotted the figure of the Rebel trooper with the heavy laser and, well, it just sort of click-fell into my online basket, as things do. The colours on her are only slightly different, so she could fight with the Pathfinders, or with the more generic Rebel infantry I had painted previously. 

Another view of the gunner. I'm sure nothing will go wrong if a stray blaster shot hits that generator, right?

I now have enough Pathfinder-style Rebel infantry for a fun scenario where the brave Alliance troops must launch a daring raid on an Imperial base - and really, is there any other kind of raid, right? But the pendulum in my collection, having swung to the Rebel side, looks like it needs to get back to the bad guys...hopefully there will be more to share in that regard as this edition of the Challenge proceeds.

For the Rebellion!

This added 89 points toward my tally in the Challenge - a decent step toward my 800 point goal. Thanks for reading - stay tuned for more AHPC XIII entries - not only from me, but watch as Dallas, Mike, Dave and Frederick join the fray as well (Federick in particular continues to deliver crushing 'points bombs' that keep him near the top of scoring table - well done!). Cheers!